Wednesday, December 30, 2015

(This one is going to raise screams of outrage from many people, but, realistically, it is hardly an exaggerated perspective on either of these men. Again, I just want to challenge people's unthinking acceptance of generally accepted shibboleths. Enjoy.)

(The other two being Field Marshall Alan Brooke who ran the Imperial General Staff from 1941-45 as 'CIGS' - Chief of Imperial general Staff, and
General Henry Maitland Wilson, who replaced Dill on the Combined Chiefs of
Staff after his death in 1944.)Whereas both
Brooke and Wilson had extensive front line experience during the war to back up
their desk roles later on, Marshall and Dill could collectively be called ‘the
5 star bureaucrats’, because they spent most of the war behind desks, without
ever commanding in combat in the field. (Dill held a Corps command in France
during the Phoney War, but was recalled to be assistant CIGS before the German
attack on France began).

Both of these
lifelong professional soldiers were undoubtedly great men. Both inspired
loyalty and affection from the vast majority of people who knew them. Both were
respected as great thinkers by many of their contemporaries in their respective
armies. Both were superior organisers, and both played an immense
– possibly even an irreplaceable part – in steering the Allies to victory.

Both also
played crucial roles in international affairs during their lives. With Dill's decisions about Greece and Malaya in 1941 both altering the course of the war and world history; and Marshall’s
roles in wartime, post war government, post war China, the Cold War, and in the Marshall
plan for aid to Europe, ranking as outstanding achievements for any soldier.

But neither had any
experience as a successful battlefield general, and it would be fair to suggest
that neither of them demonstrated skills that would have been particularly good on the battlefield as 3
or 4 star generals.

In fact, given that both demonstrated
significant flaws in geo-political thinking and strategic planning as 4 and 5
star generals, it is possibly a long bow to suggest that neither was a very good
general.

Despite all their
undoubted achievements, were they in fact failures as generals?

George Catlett
Marshall was distantly descended from the old aristocracy that Americans like
to pretend they don’t have, though his family was relatively minor Virginia aristocracy
(and of course slaveholders), and he came through an impecunious junior line. Many
of his early ancestors were soldiers – like Martin Marshall, the first to enter
the Virginia Military Academy, only to be invalided out after damaging a knee
at the battle against General Segel at Shenendoah river; and Thomas Marshall,
who fought at Valley Forge.

[One of his
biographers – Robert Payne – commented that the families who fought in the US
Civil War were often fighting a ‘continuation’ of the English Civil War,
because they were largely those same families of Roundheads and Cavaliers who
had fled England in the 1600’s. It is an amusing conceit, to which it is fun to
add the great comment from the classic book 1066
and All That, roundheads versus cavaliers = 'right but repulsive versus
wrong but romantic'… an excellent descriptor for both civil wars…]

George Marshall’s
immediate ancestors were lawyers and businessmen – not very successful ones in
some cases – though there were many more significant figures like judges and academic leaders in the family tree. General Basil Duke apparently summed up most of
the Marshall’s as a group, when he commented of Loius Marshall – the first president of
Washington University – “His opinions were frequently inaccurate, for they were
much controlled by his prejudices, but were often profound, always striking and
original”. Many might later have made this same point about George.

Like many young
officers of the time, Marshall served as a platoon commander in the newly
conquered Philippines, and saw some service in guerilla warfare against the
resistance movements. But his first significant posts were in the area that was
to become his life work – as an aide de camp to a chief of staff.

During the Great
War he specialized in training and planning, particularly helping to plan the
first attacks by US Army troops in France, and then, under Pershing, helping plan the main US parts of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. In the few months he operated
in France, he probably had a more significant planning role in operations than
any US contemporary who was still active in the Second World War.

His interwar roles
were mostly training and staff duties, except for the 3 years he commanded the
15th Infantry regiment in China. (On what every other major nation on earth, except
the US and the Soviet Union, of course, referred to as ‘imperial and colonial policing duties’). Still, between
the Philippines and France and China, he certainly had a wider exposure to the
real world of international affairs than many of his contemporaries.

By 1938 Marshall
was assigned to the War Plans Division in Washington, and that ended his
association with anything other than desk roles. Still a mere Brigadier,
he soon became Deputy Chief of Staff, where he distinguished himself as one of
the few people who would not just tell Roosevelt whatever he wanted to hear.
Although it was assumed by many that this might end his career, instead it
attracted Roosevelt to nominate this incredibly junior officer to replace
General Malin Craig as Army Chief of Staff – a position he held throughout the
war – on the day Germany invaded Poland.

To put that in
perspective Malin Craig was a Brigadier General in 1921, a Major General in
1935, and an honorary 4 star General from 1936-9, whereas Marshall was appointed
Brigadier in 1936, and was jumped to an honorary 4 star General in 1939! (By contrast
Dill was a Brigadier in WWI, a Major General in 1930, Lieutenant General 1936,
full General 1939 – with seniority backdated until 1937. Alan Brooke was a Major General in 1936, a Lieutenant General in 1938, and a full
General in 1940. Wilson was a Brigadier in 1934, a Major General in 1935, a
Lieutenant General in 1939, and a full general in 1941. All these 3 were only
raised to 4 star rank after leading a Corps or army in wartime – though Dill’s
front was inactive during his time there.)

It is no exaggeration
to suggest that Marshall was stunningly junior for this promotion, particularly
given the quality of many of the officers he was jumped over.

It was even more
surprising than the almost contemporary decision of the British government to
promote Lord Gort from Major General to 3 star and then – a few months later – a similar 4 star position, over the heads of many many far more qualified senior
officers. (And we all know how poor Gort turned out! His almost complete
failure as CIC of the BEF being a prime example of the flaws of over-promoting
a man described by his contemporaries as ‘the ideal man to command a
division’.)

Dill, although
from a not-disimilar family background to Marshall, had quite a different military
background. He was already a Captain studying at Staff College when the Great
War began, and served as Brigade Major and in many other roles through four hard years of war.
He was Mentioned in Dispatches no less than 8 times during the war, finishing as a
Brigadier and Head if Intelligence at GHQ.

Also considered a
gifted trainer, he interspersed field, training, and staff positions through
the interwar period, serving in 'hotpsots' including India and Palestine (the latter as CIC). He (and Wavell)
were overlooked as potential CIGS when the politicians made that astonishing decision to
appoint Lord Gort as a PR profile exercise (while Adam would be the 'brains' to keep things working behind the scene). So Dill belatedly received the command of I Corps in the BEF during the Phoney
War, only to be recalled to become CIGS when Churchill took over the
government – just in time for the German attack on France, and the disasters that
led to Dunkirk.

In contrast to
Marshall, Dill was the man most of his contemporaries had expected to be
appointed CIGS in 1937. His appointment in 1940 was considered to be the
righting of a wrong, and there was considerable relief that one of the most admired
and trusted thinkers in the army had taken over after the twin disasters of the
too junior Gort and the almost fossilized Ironside.

It is perhaps not
surprising therefore to note that between the time of Marshall and Dill’s
respective appointments to the top jobs and Pearl Harbor, Marshall was almost
universally admired for his impressive administrative achievements against all
odds; while Dill was generally considered to be not very successful.

Marshall
was overcoming skeptics who had underestimated his ability, whereas Dill was
failing to satisfy people who had put too much faith in his ability to be the
great white hope to save them from the disasters of his predecessors. (To be
fair, Gort and Ironside may not have been the sharpest stylises in the box, but
they had been given impossible hands to play by the stingy politics that had
gutted their commands and their allies morale for the last 20 years…
Marlborough, Napoleon and Alexander combined would have struggled to overcome
such odds.)

So Dill spent 1940
and 1941 presiding over one disaster after another, while Marshall spent it
calmly rebuilding his forces in peacetime.

Having said that,
Dill cannot be held blameless for the disasters. The great example being his
contribution to the extension of the war when he colluded with Foreign Minister Anthony Eden to undermine the early British victories in North Africa, and commit to
the chaos and renewed series of defeats that would result from an intervention
in Greece.

In 1940-41, the great
British success had been the Royal Navy domination of the Mediterranean Ocean
against the odds, and the successful offensive by O’Connors Desert Force (under
Wilson’s control) in destroying most of the large Italian forces in North
Africa. (In 'Operation Compass' O’Connors 35,000 men defeated more than 250,000, smashed 10 divisions
and took over 130,000 prisoners, 420 tanks and 845 guns… similar numbers of troops – if much better equipped – to the British and American surrenders to the initial Japanese attacks the following year in what were generally called ‘the greatest military disasters’ of their respective armies.)

O’Connor was
poised on the Libyan border, ready to make his final assault to clear the North
African shore (and incidentally capture a young German General called Rommel who
had only a few German Reconaisance troops with him as yet), when Dill suddenly agreed to shut
down his campaign, and divert the majority of the available skilled troops to a
‘forlorn hope’ campaign in Greece. A campaign that was to end in unmitigated
and completely foreseeable disaster, and lead to another two long years of
bloody and unproductive see-saw battle across the North African shore.

Admittedly the
decision to back Greece was more of a political one than a military one.
Britain had entered the war to meet its guarantees to neutrals like Poland and
Greece. So doing so was probably a moral issue, even if militarily foolish. But
in practice the great Greek leader General Metaxas had rightly felt that
bringing in British troops to his local fight with the Italians would only
inflame the situation, and lead to Germany having to intervene. He preferred
British support in the form of military equipment and supplies, but definitely
no troops! So it was only his unexpected death that had opened the opportunity
for British intervention.

Typically
Churchill was torn between enthusiasm for such a venture, both for its moral
attractiveness, and for its propaganda effects. But he was cautious enough to
issue a last minute warning that the risk should not be taken if it was too
dangerous.

Unfortunately,
with the eternally simplistic Anthony Eden completely caught by the positives,
the dispatch of Dill to supervise the discussions with Greece effectively left
the balancing vote to him alone. He voted 'yes', and effectively
threw away the very good chance to finish things in North Africa, for the very
doubtful chance to have any effect on mainland Europe.

Alan Brooke
records in his dairy his appalled reaction to such foolishness. “Why will
politicians never learn the simple principle of concentration of force at the
vital point, and the avoidance of dispersal of effort?” (It is notable though,
that he placed the blame a the feet of the politicians, rather than Dill.
Later, when himself in the position of CIGS, he would have – and did – fight
tooth and nail against similar proposals!)

Perhaps worse was Dill's practice of appointing fellow administrative staff types to executive combat
roles… the outstanding failure being the appointment of the very good
administrator and planner Percival, to the totally unsuitable role of combat
commander to deal with the inadequate strength and poor moral of the Malayan
defenders. He also acquiesced in Auchinlek's appalling decision to let the far too junior Neil Ritchie assume command of 8th Army in North Africa. (Brooke’s comments on the ‘ruining’ of good officers by appointing
them to totally unsuitable roles are particularly scathing regarding these two, and he was delighted to 'rebuild' and redeem Ritchie later in the war as a very good Corps commander.)

So by the end of
1941, we have the situation where Dill had repeatedly failed to meet impossible
expectations, to the point where a frustrated Churchill referred to him as Dilly-Dally, and
was replacing him with Brooke. Whereas in Washington Marshall had exceeded all
expectations, to the point that when war came Roosevelt would quite happily
ignore the convention that control of the army was divided between the back
room chief of staff – Marshall – and the actual field commanders, and just let
George take control of the whole shebang.

At this point in
the war, it would seem that Marshall has everything going for him, and Dill is
going to be left as another failed footnote like Gort and Ironside.

But this is where
it gets interesting.

When Japan kicked
the United States into the war, and Hitler obligingly declared war to complete
the package, Churchill immediately headed to Washington for a conference with
his new allies… taking the long established Chiefs of Staff for the Admiralty
and Royal Air Force with him, and leaving the newly appointed CIGS
– Brooke – at home to mind the store. Brooke, rightly concerned about what
impossible promises Churchill might make, convinced him to take Dill along as
the army representative. Thus was one of the most interesting, and perhaps
fortuitous accidents of the war.

Dill and Marshall
clicked. Both old fashioned gentlemen of significant intellectual achievement
and high moral codes (and both somewhat fussy bureaucrats at heart): they just
fitted together seamlessly. So much so that the next thing the alarmed Brooke knew
was that Churchill had not only signed up for a ‘Combined Allied Chiefs of
Staff Committee’, he had agreed to it being based in Washington, and to Dill
being the British head!

On the positive
side, Dill undoubtedly did more to manage good communications between fractious
allies over the next few years than just about anyone else could possibly have
achieved. He became a close friend of all the other Chiefs of Staff, including Marshall, and even King. (The US Chiefs of Staff were his coffin bearers, possibly the only time in the war they all walked in step without argument!)

Dill's personal intervention
repeatedly headed off or defused many tricky debates. In fact it is the years
1942-1944 that have set the seal on Dill’s reputation as a great man, and
someone to whom the Allies owe a great debt. This period is when Dill’s status
as a failed leader was completely revised, and his immense qualities finally
accepted by all concerned.

(On the negative
side, Churchill’s delegation of split control of operations between different competing
sets of Chiefs of Staff institutions caused most of the fractions that Dill had
to paper over, and was a constant source of frustration to Brooke. He would
clearly have preferred the co-operative staff approaches of the previous wars,
with a good communication team run by Dill, to a conflicting set of Chiefs
causing constant irritation and endless conferences that never quite agreed…)

Still it is not
Dill’s fault that Churchill and Roosevelt’s ‘Combined Chiefs’ became such a convoluted mess.
Rather it is largely to his credit that he almost single handedly made the
hodgepodge of conflicting prima-donnas function as well as they did. (His
eventual replacement, Wilson, later commented that just getting Marshall and
King to work together, let alone get a united team result from the whole group, was a truly amazing achievement…)

Dill did superb
service in those years, and is now almost universally considered one of the
great Allied leaders of the war.

By contrast,
Marshall was clearly considered a super performer at the time of Pearl Harbor,
and was now in the invidious position that Dill had held earlier... the great hope, expected to
achieve impossible results. But, despite the peons of praise thrown at all the
leaders who were involved in winning the war, he never again showed such
outstanding results compared to expectations. (Until, post war… when his most
spectacular achievement was the truly inspirational Marshall Plan to rebuild
Europe. Undoubtedly the most impressive achievement of his very impressive
life).

Part of the
problem was that Marshall’s Roosevelt approved takeover of complete control of
the US Army – relegating his supposed equal/combat superior/whatever in charge
of actual combat units to second place – suddenly meant his bailiwick expanded
from mere staff duties to executive control of the armies military operations.
Worse, to the position of making all strategic decisions for the US Army… a
role he was arguably not particularly well trained or suited for.

Given that
Roosevelt effectively delegated his ‘commander in chief duties’ to his chiefs
of staff too, that meant that there was little check on Marshall’s preferred
directions. Indeed the Combined Chiefs of Staff for the next 4 years became a
battle ground between Marshall’s strategic fantasies, King’s arrogance,
Brooke’s caution, the other members frustrations, and Dill’s flexible – but possible not too well directed – attempts to get everyone to compromise in the same direction... sometimes. Into this mix
both Roosevelt and Churchill would periodically drop unexpected, unwelcome, or
plain foolish, directions.

Marshall’s first failed
test was his fantasy that an invasion of Europe could happen in 1942.
Considering that he was the one who knew how slowly a US buildup of trained
units was proceeding. This was ridiculous. His follow up insistence on 1943 was
no better.

Marshall was then forced into
North Africa by a deal between his President and the sneaky Churchill. (Intent
on derailing both Marshall’s fantasies and King’s threatened divergences to the
Pacific, and determined to find an alternative to the ridiculous promise of a second front in 1942, Churchill convinced Roosevelt that the only way to get US troops into action in
1942 was in North Africa). Marshall was appalled by this, and effectively entered a sulk about
getting his way that he held for the rest of the war… regardless of the consequences.

From that point on Marshall appears to have automatically assumed that
Churchill (and the British Chiefs of Staff – he seemed unable to distinguish that the two often differed in thinking), were always trying to manipulate
Roosevelt, and leave him hostage to King. Thereafter he simply refused to
consider any strategic concept, or reaction to changing circumstances, that did
not fit his pre-conceived ideas. General Basil Duke’s description of what was the common attitude ofall ‘Marshalls’, was pretty
evident.

As a result his
total contribution to strategic policy for the rest of the war was to pressure
for the approach that a junior Colonel in planning (Eisenhower) had recommended
to him just after Pearl Harbor. Nothing else seemed to enter his thinking, and any alternative that was suggested almost automatically triggered his opposition. He
also showed very little sign of strategic ability beyond the most simplistic…
what has been described as ‘frontal attack by the most direct route with the
most units spread on the widest front possible’. What probably needs to be
added to that is ‘regardless of unnecessary casualties’.

The strategic low
point came when he used Rooosevelt’s illness towards the end of the war in
Europe as an excuse to ignore the concerns of his supposed Allies
– Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff, the French, and the many other allied governments who we're providing troops at the front: while letting
Eisenhower play around in a role he was unsuited for – ground forces commander – and largely ignoring his main political duties, and even abandoning most of central Europe to Soviet occupation. The British
campaign to keep Greece out of the Soviet clutches was despite Marshall's opposition,
and he did everything in his power to make sure that no similar efforts were
made in Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. The physical position of the ‘Iron Curtain’ that
Churchill later described, was decided with Marshall’s very active connivance.

Or should we say,
his wartime strategic low point was
letting the Soviets run riot in Eastern Europe. His post war
intervention in China has been widely accepted from Chiang Kai-shek's perspective – his ‘cease-fire’ and then gutting of Nationalist China’s capabilities – being a
large part of the direct cause of China, and then much of the rest of East
Asia, falling to Communism over the next bloody 30 years…

In fact a very good argument can be made (and has been made by many Chinese and others) that Marshall can be held largely responsible for the decades of Communist oppression that followed in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia... should we go on?

Marshall’s
selection of leaders wasn’t much to shout about either. Much is made of his
selecting Eisenhower. (I have my reservations about whether Ike was experienced
enough to be a good SAC or ground forces commander, but am still willing to
suggest he was a much better choice to run SHAEF than many of Marshall’s other efforts.) But the list of failures is far longer than the list of successes.

Fredendall ("I like that man, he's a fighter" was Marshall's comment),
Dawley, and Lucas are the Marshall beloved failures that everyone recognizes.
Much worse failures include J.C.H. Lee (Jesus Christ Himself as his appalled
subordinates referred to him) whose incompetence, and frankly corruption, at
logistics greatly contributed to Germany holding on into 1945. Also Clarke, who
should have got an Iron Cross from a grateful Nazi party for disobeying his
orders at Rome; and such barely competent lightweights as Hodges, whose
poor performance contributed so much to the Germans initial success at the Bulge. I would add Stilwell and MacArthur to his list of 'should have been fired', if he had the guts to take the political flack. It is unclear whether his appointment of Patton, sacking of Patton, then
re-appointment of him at a lower level than his previous subordinates, can be
considered in any way sensible or coherent either! I am sure you can think of many other examples.

His tactical
thinking wasn’t much better. The entertaining book ‘Dear General’ is the
correspondences between Marshall and Eisenhower over the 3 years Ike was
running campaigns for him. It is notable that Ike’s very humble initial letters
became more strongly worded as he matured in experience, and completely
dismissive (in the politest possible terms) of Marshall’s tactical suggestions
later on. Particularly when Marshall suggested paratroop operations that would
have made the suggested one at Rome or the actual one at Arnhem look like safe
and sensible alternatives! Marshall showed growing signs of not having graduated his tactical
thinking much beyond his interwar training exercises.

But the real nadir
of his contribution was in his supposed field of excellence – training.
Marshall and McNair between them concocted the appalling and deadly
‘replacement’ system, which ensured that inadequately trained generalists were
dumped into specialist units after months in generic pools with no ongoing training. Many had no clue how to use their own weapons. Casualty rates amongst these replacements were so shocking, that experienced
troops usually didn’t bother learning their names until they had survived a
week or two. Resulting in units of overtired and dispirited veterans being
exhausted and bitter (and quite often deserting to Paris) as their fresh replacements were slaughtered through inexperience.

One commentator
noted that the German army itself could not have devised a better system for
degrading US forces.

Possibly 20-30% of
all US Army deaths during World War Two can be directly attributed to
Marshall’s failed ‘replacement system’. (And that is before considering the
additional deaths that resulted from the probably lengthening of the war by his
overly simplistic strategy, and his constant refusal to take alternative
opportunities as they arose.)

So it is with some
confidence that we can suggest that Dill’s star rose from failure after Pearl Harbor, but Marshall’s descended slowly into revealing his weaknesses. Fortunately for him,
a descent that only avoided becoming public humiliation due the Germans
collapsing. The war ended before the American public came to realize how
closely Marshall’s policies resembled the unnecessary ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ sacrifices of
troops during the Great War.

Both had a well
demonstrated leadership capacity at basic levels. Both would have/did make good regimental officers
interwar. Both would have probably made good Brigadiers, and possibly Major
Generals – with strong enough superiors guiding them – had a war turned up early enough. (And had they had the chance to
learn new tactical doctrine to replace the outdated thinking that was too
evident in both of their tactical assessments throughout the war.)

But both seemed to
lack the attributes necessary for Corps or Army command.

Despite Dill actually
commanding a Corps during the Phoney War, his service as CIGS seems to indicate
that he was probably not the right person to maintain ‘grip’ when all around
him was coming apart. Particularly in the heat of the sort of battle that
Brooke excelled in during the French campaign. Frankly, for all his faults, Gort
was probably a more decisive man to make the decision to cut his losses than
Dill would have been. (Though Gort too would have probably gone along with the
Greek adventure, on the belief that the politicians are the boss. It took
someone like Brook to point out that suicide missions are not helpful!)

Marshall had the
strength to say no to things like Greece in 1941, but apparently not the
strategic wisdom to understand that Greece in 1945 was different to Greece in
1941. In fact one looks in vain for any suggestion that he ever let any new information affect his pre-determined viewpoints. Stubborn to a level that makes Churchill look flexible, he actually resembled Ironside far more than any of his fawning biographers should be comfortable with! He never really looked like the right person to command a Corps or Army.

Neither had the
experience or skill to command an Army Group, but would either have made a good
Supreme Allied Commander? Here we are on more interesting ground.

Marshall
would probably have been theoretically better than Eisenhower at SHAEF, because
he would have had no problem delegating a Ground Forces Commander., and sticking to the real job. Having said
that, he also had no recognizable tactical or strategic knowledge of modern
combat conditions, and appalling judgement about subordinates, so parachuting
him into a field command in 1944 might have been disastrous.

Perhaps Dill would
have been better there, but again, the 1941 Greek mistake, let alone his
selection of men like Percival for leadership roles, is not encouraging.

Was either
suitable to be Chief of Staff of their respective armies? Well, no.

Dill understood
the problems, but consistently failed to control things when he was the executive.
Whereas Marshall was all too good at controlling things, he just failed to
understand what he was controlling (and whether he should be controlling it). Both must be considered failures when they served as their armies senior
strategic and planning thinkers.

Mind you, both
were supreme administrative bureaucrats. If Marshal had been doing Lee’s job in
the invasion of France (and Patton or Truscott or Eichelberger or any other
real combat general doing Marshall’s), the war would probably have been over by
Christmas 1944!

Frankly Dill and
Marshall were unsurpassed administrative officers. But neither were good
executives.

Their real roles
were administrative support, where they excelled.

Both would almost
certainly have been failures as senior combat generals.

Friday, December 25, 2015

Well, I don't get much time to do quality writing, so I rant instead...)

Anything can be a good and productive
thing… in moderation. A bit of unity, a bit of multiculturalism, a bit of
socialism, a bit of democracy. But the problem comes when the goal becomes all
encompassing. Too much of anything is… a bad thing.

It is amusing, and terrifying, to see
successive generations of politicians and theorists fall for successive bad
ideas, which they then defend to the death… long after historical realities have
kicked in to prove that such overly-simplistic guff is in fact
overly-simplistic dangerous guff. Such stupidities have included
Internationalism, European Union, Socialism, Multiculturalism, Communism, and…
Democracy. All overly simplistic solutions, to problems that have been
carefully misread to allow such solutions to seem reasonable.

The
European Union for instance, is founded on the ridiculous, and incorrect, 1950’s
assumption that all Europe’s problems can be traced back to Nationalism.

This was a knee jerk reaction to World War
II, where the problem was supposed to be Fascism, which was supposed to be a Nationalist
version of Socialism (literally the National Socialist Workers Party in the
Nazi case).

It conveniently ignores the fact that the
Communists were just as territorially aggressive and expansionist – in the name
of ‘internationalism’ – as the fascists were – in the name of nationalism. In
fact Stalin’s deal with Hitler to divide up Eastern Europe under the
Molitov-Ribbentropp pact was what actually started the Second World War. (A
factor swept under the carpet when, at the end of the war, Finland – one of the
victims of Communist aggression in 1940 – was prosecuted for the ‘War Crime’ of
resisting Soviet occupation, by the Soviet Empire that had been expelled from
the League of Nations for its unprovoked invasion of peaceful and democratic
Finland 5 years earlier…)

So when the delusional Social Democrat
types in the decades after the war were looking for something to blame that
could be phrased in such a way as to hide their share of the guilt: they picked
the term ‘nationalism’ and launched the ‘ever closer union’ concept for Europe
as ‘the one ideal way to end all future troubles’. Possibly the most idealistic
stupidity since… well, since the same type of people launched Communism as ‘the
one ideal way to end all future troubles’ thirty or forty years earlier.

In fact, so carefully do such people hide
the truth from themselves, that it would probably come as a surprise to them to
learn that European conflict did not start with the modern nation state!

You will no doubt be amazed to learn that there
was not ideal peaceful harmony in Europe before the rise of modern Nationalism.
Frankly, Europeans have never needed much excuse to slaughter each other. Some the
reasons over the centuries since the Ancient World have included: forced and
voluntary migration; droughts, floods and famines (most of the above as results
of variants of what we now call ‘climate change’ issues); religious and political
movements; social changes and class civil-warfare; trade issues; international
exploration and colonization and de-colonisation; dynastic conflicts and treaty
obligations; slavery and attempts to end slavery; blatant territory grabs at
other people’s expense; conquests, reconquista’s and ‘liberations’; and plain
simple ‘prestige’ conflicts (such as the War of Jenkin’s Ear).

The decision – by people who want to hide
their share of any guilt – to throw all the blame onto something carefully
chosen to exclude them from any blame (and to carefully fit a requirement for a
solution that would require their own preferred world order to save everyone),
is an unfortunately common one in history.

The tendency of such idealogues to then
defend to the death such stupidity, is even more common.

Thus we have Angela Merkel announcing that
‘Germany’ will take all refugees who want to come, and then telling anyone else
in Europe who is unhappy with this idea that European Unity means they have to
accept whatever quota’s her pet European bureaucrats decide to assign. Also, while
we’re at it, that open borders in Europe mean that anyone that Germany does
accept can be immediately encouraged to move to the UK or France or Sweden anyway. Her
defence of such stupidity merely coming down to the European ideal, and to the
concept of nationalism being evil. Therefore anyone who argues her plan is stupid,
an evil racist, and probably a fascist.

Well guess what? Nationalism is going to
save Europe from such stupidity.

Unfortunately, because all the Social
Democrat types have spent so long ignoring and belittling such thinking, the
nationalism that the long ignored average voter in Europe is going to turn to
may well be as extreme as the nationalism that the European project was trying
to avoid in the first place. In other word’s Merkel and her idealogues will do
more to bring fascism back into fashion than any number of Beer Hall fanatics.

Which brings us to the problem of
Democracy. The sort of real democracy that European Unionist loonies hate,
because it is expression of common people trying to get their idealogical
rulers to listen to their real world concerns. The sort of democracy that
inevitably leads to dictatorship… (or at least to a different dictatorship than
that of Merkel and the European Union dictats).

Democracy is supposed to be a wonderful
thing, unless of course the majority of your population do not want to go where
the political and chattering classes believe they must take them. In which case
it is something to be ignored, or outflanked. Preferably by non democratic
routes such as the European Union, but if necessary by the simple expedient of
ignoring the electoral result and trying to install someone who fits your
preferences better… see Portugal after the last election.

So the great ideal of democracy is ignored
by the idealogues, until the electoral swingback gets so extreme that protest
voters start electing people who hate democracy… Extreme parties of the left
and right across Europe come easily to mind, and can be compared with other
popularly elected lashback responses by irritated and frustrated voters– Fascism and Nazism spring to mind.

The modern
ideal of Democracy, is founded on the ridiculous, and incorrect, 1700’s
assumption that all Europe’s problems can be traced back to Monarchy.

Thus we get the ‘Revolutions’ in America
and France, where educated and newly politicised chattering classes try to find
a simplistic solution to all the world’s problems. Their solution being to
adopt a system which fits their preferred world order, and seems to give them
an advantage that will allow them to force people into their way of thinking.

Humans being what they are, it didn’t work
of course.

The American Revolution, supposedly about
‘equality for all’ – if you want to fall for idealistic propaganda – was
actually a tax rebellion by Northern states (who also wanted to get rid of the
English governments treaties that kept them out of Indian land), and the
Southern states (who wanted to block the English anti-slavery legislation from
spreading to their nice comfy system). It was never really about equality, and
all the exclusions of people from voting on the basis of colour, race, sex,
religion, immigration status, etc, should have made it clear to anyone that
what was being considered was really an Oligarchy. Similar in fact to the
Ancient Greek and Roman slave based societies, where some special and limited
classes shared rights no one else had.

Actually all ‘successful’ democracies in
history have always been Oligarchies. The 1000 year old ‘Sublime Republic of
Venice’ – on which large parts of the US constitution were based – for
instance, being limited to a certain number of families that had the vote.
Similarly the ‘Republics’ of Ancient Greece or Rome, and modern Switzerland or Israel,
being based on vote by military service – another way of ensuring the voters
might put national interests above selfish ones.

The first few French republics (those
squeezed in around the inevitable dictatorships and emperors that are the
result of such systems) were also based on a limited franchise. In their case
not a race or religion or sex one like the US, but a straight property
qualification that saw a small percentage of both sexes as voters.

Unsurprisingly the Oligarchical Republics
of the 18th and 19th centuries were some of the most
internally violent (US Slavery, Civil War, Indian Wars, the Terror, multiple revolts and 'communes', Lynchings,
Jim Crow laws, etc), and externally aggressive (Napoleonic Wars, Spanish
–American Wars, ‘Interventions’ in Central America, Occupations of Hawaii,
Philippines, etc) governments in history. Rivaling the Greek and Roman
republics for their aggressive expansionism by land and sea, and certainly
being no less effective than more traditional military (Russia and Germany) or
trade (Britain and Netherlands) expansionist states.

(And here I would note that the one of the
mitigating factors in the idea that German Nationalism was a problem in WWI,
was that the populist Navy Leagues and Colonial Leagues of the newly
enfranchised voting classes did in fact push Nationalism to dangerous extremes.
The Kaiser was a dangerous loon, but he was a dangerous loon responding to the
fervor of the dregs of the petti bourgeois who had been enfranchised in his
nation, not a man with Napoleonic capabilities in his own right.)

Fortunately the idealogues had a solution
to overcome these minor imperfections of limited franchise democracy… universal
franchise.

The more
recent concept of Universal Franchise Democracy, is founded on the ridiculous,
and incorrect, early 1900’s assumption that all Europe’s problems can be traced
back to a limited voting Oligarchy.

Clearly if the ‘ruling classes’ in a state
are the rich and powerful – ie, the naturally conservative propertied elements
who make the economy work and provide the productive jobs – then the chattering
classes who want change will need to enfranchise the not rich and not powerful,
so they can ride the wave of demand tor change into their ideal world. In fact
so they can direct it to provide taxpayer funding for non productive jobs…. For
people like them.

It is certainly no accident that the modern
‘ruling class’ is the nouveau-rich chattering classes – and the power base they
have established in the completely unproductive taxpayer supported lawyers and civil servants and
union officials – who lead inevitably to
‘leaders’ who have the right and duty to lecture their stupid populace’s for
not being politically correct enough… People like Merkel, Obama, and the
European Union President. (Go on, name him? He has more practical power to
interfere in his ‘citizens’ lives than either of the other two. Who is he?)

It is not just the Australian Union
Movement of which we can say ‘they used to consist of the cream of the working
class, now they consist of the dregs of the middle class’. All the petty tyrants
who gorge in the taxpayers trough, and who try and force the ignorant peasants
under their care down the correct path – whether medieval monks selling
indulgences, or modern human rights lawyers banning free speech on issues they
disapprove of – tend to be the dregs.

The dregs, of the intellectual fervor, of
the previous generation, of wrong thinkers.

The dregs of any intellectual movement
eventually have to accept that their ideal is hogwash. Even Marxists have
started to admit that after a century of promoting Communism, they can no
longer hide the hideous nature of Communism. Still, they are not going to give
up their world-view just because the evidence against it is so overwhelming
that continued attempts to argue in favour of it become ridiculous. Instead
they move smoothly to supporting another, equally ridiculous ideaology that
they think will support their world view. Say Environmentalism, or
Multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism
is founded on the ridiculous, and incorrect, 1970’s assumption that all ‘the
West’s’ problems can be traced back to integrating immigrants into a corrupt
western society, when clearly their pure original society was better. (After
all, that’s why they were trying to move to the West, wasn’t it? To go from a
superior society to an inferior one?)

Well where’s the point of making integrated
citizens? How can lawyers and social workers (any more than the union officials
of the previous generation), make ever increasing demands on the public purse,
if they can’t create the conflicts that drive the need for their services?

The rule that the amount of social work
needed increases at a faster rate than the number of social workers available
to do it is just the Sir Humphrey Appleby principle of civil service
management. If you want to be overpaid by the taxpayer to do unproductive work,
you have to create a need for the work to be done. This can be best done by
promoting policies that cause the frictions you want to be paid to control.
Simples!

So we have ever greater education costs
that result in ever decreasing literacy; for the same reason that we have ever
greater family law divorce and settlement processes that result in ever greater
‘family’ violence problems.

The simple fact is that the more incentive
given to taxpayer funded people to do whatever they want to do, the more
problems they help to manufacture that will lead to more funding.

(Let’s not even talk about climate change
‘scientists’ who need ever greater funding to overcome the fact that their
fancy models do not remotely resemble the facts. If anything was as simple as
‘we can solve the world’s problems by limiting one insignificant natural
chemical by one insignificant %’, then we would not need to pay billions to
explain why none of it adds up. If they could stop defending the indefensible
for a few minutes, we might be able to look at the myriad intersecting issues
that cause real pollution and environmental degradation…. But no, limit carbon
dioxide growth by 1% and all the world’s problems will be solved! Hallelujah!!!)

So why do the silly chattering classes
fixate on stupid oversimplifications?

Because they are too lazy or limited to
explore wider I suppose.

But why do they defend them to the death
even when it is proved they are crap?

Well, it would seem, because we let them
make vast amounts from doing so.

Follow the money… that will explain all.

This is even more the case of idealistic
socialists who live on the public purse, than it is for the evil capitalists
they despise.

About Me

A professional historian and educator challenges some assumptions.
(A sometimes tongue-in-cheek polemic, with a Socratic emphasis on challenging people to argue back. Please do so... I make some of it outrageous largely to encourage a debate).